Have you ever done something a different way and thought, “Why didn’t I do it that way before?” or “Why didn’t I think of that sooner.”

Anyone who knows me well knows I love to dance. Really love to dance. Like dancing where definitely I do it like no one is watching because dancing moves me, it stirs my heart and digs deep into the soul of who I am.

On Saturday, C.C. and I went to our good friend Jane’s Birthday Party and I danced.

Full disclosure: my beloved had cautioned me about dancing. The weekend before I wound up in the Emergency room because of my back.

“You be careful,” he cautioned me.

But, when the music starts playing, I truly cannot help myself! I have to dance. Especially when Jane’s delightful daughter CJ asks the band to play as their first song, Proud Mary.

It is my daughters’ and my ‘anthem song’.

We even have a ‘routine’ for it — at least for the first few slow bars. And then… we break loose.

On Saturday, my youngest daughter and I stepped onto the dance floor, and broke loose.

I stayed conscious of my back, but I definitely moved my body. Seated in the back at our table, I could see my beloved shaking his head in loving wonderment at how I could so totally lose myself to the music and forget all about my back. I smiled and waved at him and spun and moved and gave myself over to the music.

To be fair, I did not leap or cavort. I just spun and moved, conscious of my back’s need to feel secure while giving it the freedom to simply feel fluid again.

And here’s the surprising thing. It felt better!

Yup. Movement helped. Which makes sense. I’d been holding my body so still and careful for many days, the stiffness had devolved from my back being out of whack to my lack of free-flowing movement causing my body to feel as though my back was still out of commission.

It wasn’t. Perhaps if I’d been listening I would have heard it saying… Move it baby. Move it.

I finally did.

What a relief.

Which is where the ‘doing something different and wondering why I hadn’t thought of it before comes in.’

Every morning before I write, I meditate. I let my practice slip for the past few months but had moved back into ‘time to begin again’, and was doing it.

What I hadn’t yet embraced was the need to also create space for movement, stretching, exercise.

Yesterday morning, as I awoke and prepared to meditate my mind awoke too. “Hey!”, it said. Why don’t you meditate and dance at the same time?”

I heard the question rising from within and thought, “Hmmm. Why don’t I?”

So I did.

What a gift!

I moved around my hotel room (albeit carefully due to not a lot of room – but enough) and stretched and let my body flow with the music as I reached and bent and leaned into the space around me.

And then I sat down to write.

My body thanked me. My mind thanked me. My being thanked me.

All because I chose to do something differently.

We all resist change. It is our human nature.

I have been resisting the change of letting inertia hold me to my chair, the couch, the bed, the doing nothingness of sitting around without intent.

Yesterday, I changed my position.

In the parlance of the Prosci (that’s said – Pro Sceye — as in Sci-ence) Change Management Course I’m taking, I was applying the ADKAR model to my morning change-up:  Awareness. Desire. Knowledge. Ability. Reinforcement.

This morning, I stepped reinforced my commitment to change and practiced my Morning Meditation Movement.

Definitely feeling the movement in my back and body. Definitely feeling in the flow of my day!

I like it! I FEEL Good!

Namaste.